Answers to Your Questions

Answering all the TESOL questions thus far

Alright, I got a decent amount of questions thus far, so might as well make an entry! Keep them coming if you guys think of any more!

Do you just teach an English class or a variety of subjects?

The school I work at is an English cram school, so English is the only subject I teach. Each lesson is two hours long and covers different components such as grammar, reading, listening practice, pronunciation, etc.

What age are your students?

This varies by class, some of mine, are as young as 6-7 and I have some in their teenage years.

Do you have to spend a lot of time making lesson plans?

While I spent a lot of time with this at first, it has gotten a lot easier and only takes me about 30 minutes per class. There are things that I do outside of the regular lesson planning such as come up with games to play with them to give them practice and time grading their homework.

How are your students?

For the most part very good, even the somewhat naughty kids in my classes aren’t that bad. The younger ones can get a bit too energetic at times. Classroom management still is something I struggle with in my larger classes, as it takes a bit to get them to quiet down if they get really loud during an activity.

Are you enjoying it?

Very much! I love my students, and even though there are a lot of things I know I need to improve as a teacher, I’m finally comfortable in the classroom and I’m starting to get to know my students, which helps a lot. Like I said classroom management is still something I struggle with as well as explaining activities clearly, but we’re getting there. I realize I don’t talk about it much on here, which is due to I have to be careful not to talk about specific students or aspects of my school for confidentiality rules sake, since this is on the internet. I will try to get better with this though.

How many classes do you have?

At the moment I have seven, but my schedule will probably be including more soon. The size of these varies as well, I have some as small as eight students, and my largest is about twenty-two. Each of these classes is taught twice a week for two hours each time. I teach them once and the co-teacher once. I also have subbed a few classes recently adding to my schedule.

What do you do with all that cash?

Well at the seventh of the month I hand nine of those crisp blue bills to my landlord, along with a little extra for my power bill. After that, there is an envelope it all sits in, on my desk for now, and I take some out as I need it. As I got my ARC last week I will now think about opening a bank account, which will make it a bit easier to keep track of my money and prevent the loosing of giant envelopes of cash.